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Mozilla CEO Firestorm Likely Violated California Law
theodp (442580) writes "While the rise and fall of Brendan Eich at Mozilla sparked a debate over how to properly strike a balance between an employee's political free speech and his employer's desire to communicate a particular corporate 'culture,' notes Brian Van Vleck at the California Workforce Resource Blog, the California Labor Code has already resolved this debate. 'Under California law,' Van Vleck explains, 'it is blatantly illegal to fire an employee because he has donated money to a political campaign. This rule is clearly set forth in Labor Code sections 1101-1102.' Section 1102 begins, 'No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.' Corporate Counsel's Marlisse Silver Sweeney adds, 'Mozilla is adamant that the board did not force Eich to resign, and asked him to stay on in another role. It also says that although some employees tweeted for his resignation, support for his leadership was expressed by a larger group of employees. And this is all a good thing for the company from a legal standpoint.' As Eich stepped down, Re/code reported that Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker said Eich's ability to lead the company had been badly damaged by the continued scrutiny over the hot-button issue. 'It's clear that Brendan cannot lead Mozilla in this setting,' Baker was quoted as saying. 'I think there has been pressure from all sides, of course, but this is Brendan's decision. Given the circumstances, this is not surprising.' Van Vleck offers these closing words of advice, 'To the extent employers want to follow in Mozilla's footsteps by policing their employees' politics in the interests of 'culture,' 'inclusiveness,' or corporate branding, they should be aware that their efforts will violate California law.'"
He fucking resigned.
I may not agree with Brendan's position, but it is a scary precedent to get rid of people based on their personal beliefs and political activities.
--MyLongNickName
How do you color the whole issue as him only resigning, when three board members quit over his presence there. That's a lot of pressure from the company.
It looks an awful lot like coercion...
But, isn't it up for him to sue if he feels he did not resign voluntarily? It seems like he probably would not do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's right! Human rights for all, except the humans I don't like!
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The crux of the issue is that social attitudes are in flux on this matter. If you don't give people leeway to change, they will likely harden their positions.
And if you give some people leeway to change (eg- Obama, Hilary) and deny leeway to others (Brendan Eich) you are being blatantly partisan and unfair.
Had he donated $1000 to pro-gay organization and was fired - there would be wide action in his support....
But he donated to the wrong organization so he "resigned" - after external and internal pressure...
It sickens me... there is no more free speach... and some people clearly can be discriminated because of their political views...
Those laws are only supposed top protect those that hold the same opinion as myself, because I'm perfect and the opinions I hold are truth incarnate. People that don't share every single one of my opinions should never be allowed to work because they're wrong thus bigots thus evil.
There's so much wrong with your post that I think you don't know anything about the case in question OR how reality works. First off, Eich didn't "spout out", he stayed quiet. Prop 8's detractors simply hunted him down on the list of people who donated to Prop 8. Then he stepped down rather then pretending he was suddenly converted to the cause. HUGE difference.
Secondly, are you REALLY asking people to shut up about their political opinions or suffer penalty? That's like telling gay supporters of a decade or two ago to shut up if they don't want to be persecuted. You're basically trying to have it both ways while hiding behind pretty-sounding words to justify it. Which is disturbing to say the least.
Finally, yes, actually *firing* a person for making a donation to a cause you don't like is not something you can claim as the moral high ground. It may disgust you and I that Eich supported a cause we don't believe in, but get some damn perspective before you turn into the bigots you despise. Fighting for tolerance on one hand, while finding every excuse to be intolerant to your opponents on the other, is disgusting.
GLBT organizations have a perfect right to express their opinions, and even to use political and economic pressure to achieve their desired ends. The Mozilla foundation acted correctly in not bowing directly to this pressure. Mr. Eich acted both correctly and even (some might say) with noble altruism in resigning.
Understand the causes of actions - if you insist on placing blame, place it where it belongs. Mr. Eich was forced out by the GLBT community over his support for a bill which directly contradicted their political agenda. Their actions were within what is considered to be acceptable, and resulted in Mr. Eich sustaining a personal loss for his open support of a bill he obviously believes in. I don't think anybody here behaved badly or did anything wrong; but I believe that all involved should now be judged by their actions and their roles in this drama.
As it stands, I think he probably had a moderate chance of succeeding in a legal suit. At the very least he could of sued Mozilla over some workplace harassment law (not providing a safe workplace).
But with the quote from the Mozilla Executive Chairman: "'It's clear that Brendan cannot lead Mozilla in this setting,' Baker was quoted as saying." I would say any legal action over discrimination against Mozilla is now in his favour. To me that says that only reason he was not fired, was because he was given the option to resign, before they fired him. And Mozilla would/will find it hard to explain to the court how firing someone who was unpopular because of a political belief is completely different than firing someone for a political belief. I am not saying it is cut and dry, but he definitely seems to have a case.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Mozilla lost a great technically minded CEO who could have done some good things for the organization; which IMHO badly needs strong leadship right now.
Why because a bunch of the rabble could not deal with someone not sharing their opinions. Honestly I don't think anyone supporting same sex marriage supports equality at all. Government should not recognize ANY marriage. If you get married that should be entirely between you, your God(s), who ever else attends where you warship, and that's it.
It should not be your boss's business, nor the state's nor any courts. Government recognizing marrige does nothing but create a special class of people (married people), and there is no reason they should get the special treatment they do.
As far as children go, both biological parents should be considered to have parental rights and responsibilities, unless the father isn't known and nobody comes forward for in some reasonable time frame.
Everyone should be entitled to name someone (anyone) they wish to specify to share anything that exists as a spousal benefit today or those benefits should be withdrawn. I don't think anyone should have to file a tax return, but as long as we have tax returns EVERYONE should have to file individually.
So will I continue to vote against so called marriage equality; you bet I will because the last thing I want to see is the expansion of what is already a special class which should not exist in secular society.
1) He resigned, he wasn't fired.
2) There was pressure to resign, or else be fired, sure, but the fundamental reason is that users were throwing tantrums and threatening a boycott. That seems like a legit reason to fire someone to me.
No, that's coercion.
What's been lost in all this is the fact that in 2008, the same year that Brendan Eich made that campaign contribution, Barack Obama went on national television in a debate with John McCain, and said that he believes marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
Where is the outrage over that? Why is it that Obama was elected president of the United States, twice, and Eich was forced to resign from the company he helped start?
By this line of "reasoning", if your CEO decides to run as mayor or get a new ballot initiative declaring some minority group as 3/5ths of a human or making it illegal for them to serve food due to being dirty (insert minority here)'s, then I guess the companies hands are tied and they can't fire him.
Yep, just like you also can't fire an employee for voting Democrat or being a pro-gay rights activist in his off-time. It cuts both ways, sparky.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Yes, I thought it through and it's the only tenable option. That and social pressure. Laws forcing you to retain douchebags like this guy are insane, completely irrational.
So, in conservative states, it should be perfectly legal to fire gay activists and those who donate to gay rights causes? Hey, social pressure, right?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Are you serious? CEOs are different than regular employees
Yes, I am. Rights should apply to everyone, not just the people that you believe are worthy.
If you think that people shouldn't have the right to donate to a political cause without fear of reprisal from their employer, fine. But to give that right to some people and not others is wrong.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
So therefore a right wing company should have the right to fire gays, single mothers, and douchebags like you?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Community opinion? It was backlash from a vocal minority.
A majority of Californians recently voted against gay marriage.
Replace "California" with "South Carolina" and "Republican" with "Democrat" in your argument and think hard about what you're really advocating for. Political litmus tests for employment have been a big no-no for a damn good reason. Do you *really* want your employer digging into your political beliefs, with the freedom to shitcan you if he doesn't like them?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
[rushing to speakerphone] Janice, please tell all the coloreds and jews that they're fired. RightSaidFred99 said it's okay.
I wonder how damaged Mozilla is by the Streisand effect for this whole debacle. If nobody publicized Eich's relatively small contribution to a political campaign from six years ago, nobody would know about any of this. I seriously doubt Eich had some kind of master plan for a gay purge at Mozilla. It is possible for one to be opposed to gay marriage without hating gay people, and chances are his political opinion would have no negative impact on Mozilla.
If nobody had said anything, Mozilla would probably sail along just fine. Instead, a big deal was made, and now you've got pro gay marriage people who were upset that Mozilla would ever employ such a gay-hatin' monster, you've got anti gay marriage people claiming persecution, and then the base of people who think it's much ado about nothing, anyway, because somebody's political opinions shouldn't have anything to do with their job.
Basically, everybody comes out of this smelling like shit, when if nobody had ever said anything, things probably would have been just fine.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
meh, there is something to be said for some groups needing legal protections more then others, and in general people with wealth and power tend to have enough of their own resources and political power to take care of themselves and still come out on top.
I'm not buying this argument. Just because some group may "need it less" doesn't mean that you should arbitrarily take those protections away from them. That's just an excuse to take away those rights, not a reason.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
This lot gives Obama a pass because they think he was just saying that for political reasons.
I mean come on, lighten up. He's just a lying liar, not anti gay!
Because Obama, wink wink, was really on the gay marriage side and just sayin' that so's not to spook the flyover states.
Same reasons the left gives him a pass on drone strikes and gitmo.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Of course a CEO is in a "special position". So what? He's still a person, and it is wrong to deny him the rights and protections given to everyone else.
Your argument is based on dehumanizing a class of people.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
employees get fired for virtually everything...the annecdotes are ridiculous
if an entry level new-hire at a software company dropped a grenade in the first meeting they were allowed to attend and said, "Our app doesn't make money because everyone knows it is spam"
**right in front of the boss/guy who invented the app**
and that guy got fired...or reassigned to something so bullshit that he quit...
would we even care or suspect something wrong happend?
in my mind Mozilla's CEO is the same
just b/c he's a CEO doesn't mean he is immune to the vagaries of contemporary employment
Thank you Dave Raggett
When someone expects to be able to say hateful things because their religion says, and then gets up in arms when someone calls them on it ... the word you're looking for is hypocrisy.
How is it hypocrisy? Eich wasn't trying to silence or punish anyone for their political beliefs. Others were trying to silence or punish him for his. I think we should all be allowed to have our own political opinions and give money to causes as we see fit without losing our jobs over it. Apparently, so does the California Labor Code.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"GLBT organizations have a perfect right to express their opinions,"
I'll be impressed if you can point at a signficant GLBT organization that actually did discuss Eich. As near as I can tell, the repsonse was entirely grassroots, and not limited to GLBT individuals.
I'm a nature photographer.
So, it's still okay to fire gay CEO's, then? I mean, if I'm in a conservative state and someone spots my CEO at a gay bar or notices that he's donated to some gay cause, he has to go. I presume you're good with that?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Yep, sure is. Ever filled out a job application that asked if you were a fascist or a communist?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
This all started with the LA Times obtaining a list of all donors to Prop 8 and publishing it's contents as a searchable online database.
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/04/03/how-did-people-find-out-that-mozillas-ceo-donated-to-support-prop-8/
The law that requires that all political donors who donate more than $100 may be divulged is the issue here. So it would seem that if you want to donate and NOT face repercussions for having an unpopular opinion, then you should never ever donate more than $99 to any California Ballot Measure or Political Initiative based in California.
In this case, it appears that CA law regarding disclosure of political contributions has come head to head with CA Labor Code. And considering SCOTUS' recent decision to consider monetary campaign contributions as free speech, it also would potentially have Constitutional ramifications (not for Mozilla, but for the State of California disclosure policy) So in this case, there is likely fuck-all Eich can do about it unless he wants to make a major stink about it in Federal Courts, at his own expense and with no possibility of personal gain.
From all accounts he both continued and even extended LGBT friendly practices at Mozilla.
The ONLY thing ever said about him was he donated to Prop 8 and because of that it was assumed (I would guess rightfully so) that he believed the legal definition of marriage should remain 1 man 1 woman (as did the majority of Californians at the time). No one has ever come forward, to my knowledge, to say he ever put forward any proposals to limit same sex benefits at any place he ever had any control over.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Why is it OK to have a hate campaign against Eich and what he believed in?
Either you are against hate campaigns and truly believe in difference of opinion, or you start a hate campaign yourself and hypocritically drum someone out of work through the very kind of hatred you claim to deplore.
It really is that simple. One bigot left Mozilla - but EVERYONE remaining who did not quit in disgust is a bigot also. Were I am employee of Mozilla I would have resigned alongside him, even though I am on the opposite side of the prop 8 debate. I find it sad that no-one there seems to have any strength of character.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Politics: noun plural but singular or plural in construction
activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in a government
the work or job of people (such as elected officials) who are part of a government
the opinions that someone has about what should be done by governments : a person's political thoughts and opinions
" but get some damn perspective before you turn into the bigots you despise"
Too late.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The law in question doesn't make that distinction. Second, who gets to decide who is a qualified employee? You don't want some bribeable bureaucrat or politician deciding, contrary to the intent of the law, that CEOs have protection, but members of labor unions don't. I think we should aspire to be a nation "of laws not men", where the whims and emotions of individual men can be curbed by impartial and fair laws.
Further, why shouldn't CEOs get protection under this law? Fairness should mean equal protection under the law.
My next to final point is that the Eich witch hunt didn't consider the legal consequences of condemning Eich for a lawful, protected activity. Mozilla is now exposed to some degree of legal liability because of this hubbub. Better hope that Eich got paid well for his departure or it's not going to be pretty for Mozilla.
especially when he calls some people subhuman.
Didn't happen. Google around. If he had really called anyone "subhuman" (or even be merely accused of doing so) it'd be all over the internet rather than just an empty accusation in the backwaters of Slashdot.
Let's take a look at OKCupid's CEO as well.
http://www.motherjones.com/moj...
In 2004 Sam Yagan donated $500 to Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah). Rep. Cannon voted for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, against a ban on sexual-orientation based job discrimination and for a prohibition on gay adoptions.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The first part is that there are basically two groups of people: those that feel they should be able to do whatever makes them happy as long as what they're doing doesn't adversely affect others, and those who feel they have the right to tell others what they can and can't do regardless of impact on themselves.
Make whatever convoluted case or slippery slope argument you want, Adam and Steve getting married has zero actual effect on anyone else. So what you have is a CEO basically giving his social opinion that he feels something is wrong that people who work for him feel is okay. My last company allowed employees to wear shorts to work because it was 120 out in the summer. One day someone brought that up in a room with a vice president in it and his comment was "Yeah, you're allowed to do it...but I think its damned unprofessional". Half the people in the room were wearing shorts. Word got around and nobody wore them anymore. So what a senior manager says has a significant effect on workers, right or wrong, rules/laws or not.
Second part is that roughly half the people/customers/programmers/business owners/executives believe one way on this and the other half believe the opposite. You're therefore alienating half the people that work for the company and half the people it works with. Not a good idea from any perspective. Sure, the ones that feel like you do will rally behind you while the other half walk away. Probably okay if you're making chicken sandwiches. Not okay when you're trying to manage a major software company.
Bottom line: keep your social opinions to a personal level and keep them out of a professional environment. You can make all the legal arguments you want. The VP still thinks shorts are unprofessional and chances are if you wear them, you're going to be getting the crap jobs if he notices.
What is really strange is that people seem to forget that he supported a law that passed.
Frankly the firestorm smacks of the black lists of the 1950s.
Someone supports a political concept that you do not like or you even feel is evil and you get drummed out of your business.
And let us be really honest. Stalinist Russia was evil and they had the largest influence in the US communist party from the 1930s up.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Government does recognize marriage so by voting against marriage equality for all what you are really saying is you support privileges for the people that already have them.
I disagree. There's good reasons for protecting people from discrimination according to certain classes; the whole idea is to prevent classes of people from being stuck in an underclass because no one will employ them.
However, it's also important that people be qualified for the jobs they're in. For instance, discriminating against black people is normally bad, but what if the job is to be a model for clothing targeted at white people, or an actor for a product that only certain white demographics are interested in? Conversely, what if the job is to model hair accessories that only black people would be interested in; should white models be excluded? As far as I know, in jobs like this (modeling, acting), employers have very wide latitude. A black actor isn't going to get very far suing Stephen Spielberg because he couldn't get hired to play the part of Abraham Lincoln, nor would male actor get far suing Spielberg for refusing to cast him as Lincoln's wife.
Eich was not just some low-level worker, he was the CEO (briefly). As such, he's the public face of the company, so his political positions absolutely do reflect on the company as a whole. To me, that means that the company has every right to scrutinize his public political positions, and to remove him if the customer base rebels and decides they hate him and are boycotting the company. The same isn't true of some low-level coder, or the janitor; these people are (more) easily replaced, and aren't paid nearly as much either. Being the top boss of a company carries a big paycheck and a lot of privileges and visibility, but along with that there's downsides, such as a lack of privacy and being subject to the whims of the board. Don't like it? Don't apply for the job. Stay a low-level manager. It's just like being a celebrity. If you're a celebrity making millions of dollars per movie, or an outspoken politician, you have no right to complain that you have no privacy. It's part of the territory. If you value your privacy that much, stay the heck out of the limelight. No one forced you into that job.
Your comment, dear sir, is strangely familiar. I've heard it somewhere before. Ah, I remember, the Spanish Inquisition. No, no, I think it was even earlier, yeah, the Constance Council: "John Huss remained ardent in his faith in God and in his faith in God’s Word. At his trial, he was given the opportunity to recant. He would not do so. A large procession of people led him away to the place where he would be burned at the stake."
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Marriage is a civil institution. People with religious delusions want everything to be about their cults, but reality doesn't work that way.
Of course the courts have the power to redefine civil marriage.
It's not quite that simple. For centuries there was no separation of church and state in Europe, so it is difficult to say whether marriage was religious or civil as they were one and the same. To further complicate matters, prior to the church instituting it's view of marriage on the people, one could only get married civilly with the express permission of the king, governor or whomever was the legal authority. It was the church that stated that people are free to marry whomever they chose, with certain restrictions (ie couldn't be previously married, free consent, etc.). The church's influence in Western society and culture wasn't just about marriage. It also extended to education (both lower and higher, including universities and the like), legal systems, social norms, philosophy, research and science and numerous other areas that touch modern life. Why can't you marry your first cousin? It's illegal. Why is it illegal? Because the church forbade it long before any monarch or government declared it wrong.
And that really is how things work. Like it or not, pretty much all of modern society has been influenced by religious systems.
No, he's right. This is free speech working - and in order to keep it working, we (those of us who disagree with their speech or their tactics) have an obligation to make an answer, to exercise our free speech.
as the church that stated that people are free to marry whomever they chose, with certain restrictions (ie couldn't be previously married, free consent, etc.).
Don't be foolish. Polygamy was banned fairly recently, consent wasn't actually required of the woman who was considered chattel, and even age restrictions are civil not religious. There is nothing in the bible about how old a person, especially a woman, must be to wed.
Why is it illegal? Because the church forbade it
Why did the church forbid it? Because earlier religions forbade it. Why did they forbid it? Because inbreeding resulted in deformed offspring and being ignorant as they were, they attributed it as punishment from the god(s) du jour.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
It's not a black and white issue, it is complicated. "Marriage" as a civil institution is what's messed up. Civil unions are the civil institution, whereas marriage is a social institution (with various ethnic, religious and other traditions involved). The equality that people want in marriage is in regards to civil equality for the most part. Ie, issues in regards to adoptions, death benefits, hospital visitations, joint property ownership, tax benefits (or penalties), and so forth. It really was confusing about what the difference in California law was between civil unions and marriage, other than the words.
I think the institution should be split up. You get both a civil union in order to get the legal benefits, and also get a religious or other ceremony for the social benefits. And couples are allowed to get both, just one, or neither.
What's worrisome to me is that this has a big chance of backfiring. Sure, in San Francisco and Hollywood it is easy to come to the impression that gay rights is now mainstream. But the reality is that the majority of US residents are still somewhat negative about gay marriage. It is great that gay rights are advancing, but it is also very easy for them to be rolled back. Right now there is a lot of anger out there about judicial activism in this regard, as all the states that allow gay marriage have done so because of court rulings rather than the ballot box or large movement of public opinion.
In California prop 8 was overturned basically due to a loophole; the governor's refused to defend the law in court. Yes that sounds good on the surface but has a lot of nasty consequences. First, other states have been drafting laws against gay marriage intended precisely to avoid similar legal problems. Second, it opens wide the doors for governor's you don't agree with to use the same lack-of-enforcement as a de-facto veto of a proposition. We're not always going to have a liberal governor in California.
> People with religious delusions want everything to be about their cults, but reality doesn't work that way.
Way to flamebait. Good thing you're on the party line or you'd have gotten modded down.
The simple fact of the matter is, that everyone wants everything to be about their beliefs, "cult" or not. In a democratic society we work out (or are supposed to) something that works as a good enough compromise, but at the end of the day it's basically all arbitrary crap. I doubt you'll find a law on the books that derives itself from anything much like pure reason... They're really all there because people didn't like one thing or another, and wanted to make sure that wasn't allowed. "That's annoying" "That's mean" "That's weird" "That cost me money", etc. Really, "against my religion" is probably one of the rarer reasons for a law to be on the books. When it comes to gay marriage, I quite honestly think that more people are against it because "That's gross" rather than any religious reason; they just use religion as an easier point of debate.
You have it backwards. In European cultures, marriage was a religious institution first. It wasn't later when the government got involved and civil marriages came into existence.
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
If Eich said "Same sex marriage is not for me" that's one thing. But he said "I want to pass a law that denies gay people the right to marriage". That, dear sir, is bigotry. Being against bigotry is not intolerant, it is required behavior of any moral person.
I don't care if he was supporting a bill to impose shariah on California, or give tax breaks to encourage polygamous marriage, or circumcise all males that enter the state. I don't have to agree with him, I can campaign against him, but it is still his right to think that.
The right to free political involvement is where all other rights come from. Once you permit someone to be harassed for their political beliefs, no-matter how abhorrent they are to you, then whatever your rights are will soon become subject to the whims of those who have the most power to harass their opponents.
Being against anything to the extent that it overrides your civility is the basic core of intolerance. History has been full of groups who have seen their cause as being more important than basic civility such as KKK, Taliban, Supreme Harmony Society, Hutu militia, Red Guards, some US Civil War era democrat politicians, and the result has always been roughly the same. To my knowledge Eich was not practicing uncivil behavior towards gays by discriminating against them or using slurs against them, he just supported a bill. This bill, you might believe is discriminatory in nature, but that decision in a democracy is up to the people and their representatives, and at the very least we all have the right to put forward any question for the people to decide on.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
No he said "I want to pass a law that prevents a judge from forcing this state to redefine marriage."
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano